arrest and trial

On April 15, 1997, Frank Casteel was arrested and charged with three counts of first degree murder. The news media was already there at Frank's work place.

Had the media been notified beforehand since they were waiting to get pictures and story? Who stood to gain from any advance publicity of an arrest that hadn't yet happened?

There are many unanswered questions. The justice system has to be accountable for giving the answers when another innocent life is in the balance. The police had obtained a search warrant for Frank's home in Georgia. How is justice served when the police over -extend the search without probable cause? They broke into the house and ransacked the place. By this time the news media was there watching.

The police had to make it look good for the media and the public. Some of the public might even be called to serve on the jury. Even though the search warrant said to get anything pertaining to some letters that had been sent to ("undercover officer") Marie Hill, they took 60 to 65 items that had nothing to do with anything in this case. (Example: Bibles, Video tapes, and a shotgun that Frank bought after Larry Sneed, one of the detectives, removed a shotgun Frank owned even before the three men were found.) The trial started on May 9, 1998. This trial was a media circus.

The opening statements were made by Lee Davis, the special prosecutor in this case. Later, he was fired from the District Attorney's (DA) office by District Attorney Bill Cox, after Davis decided to run for DA. Lee Davis was then hired by the victims' families for only one dollar. Davis said the state would prove that Frank had committed this crime. The state did not prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. The state would put 12 people - not witnesses - just people in the area - on the stand, who will say Frank pointed a gun at them. The prosecution would also use the letters that were sent to Marie Hill. These letters bring up more questions.

More unanswered questions still remain. What was the motivation to send these letters? Lee Davis held the logbook in his hands and basically said that this logbook proves that Frank committed these murders because there were no more entries in the book after Jeff Mann and Terry Mills, the two men that came to the Casteel property on the 9th. The reason there were no more entries beyond that date has a more benign explanation. The police took it along with the shotgun owned by Frank Casteel. The logbook was kept by the police from that date until the trial, and then it was kept by Lee Davis in his briefcase. Now about these letters. The letters were used to implicate and damn Frank Casteel as the one who committed the crime of murder. Think about it, someone can say you did this and you did that, but saying it doesn't make it so. Air-tight evidence is needed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this person killed three men.

The defense was not allowed to bring in a lot of the things that would show that someone else could have done this. The defense was not allowed to show the way these so-called detectives conducted this investigation. I don't know who committed these murders, but I can tell you this, the man sitting in prison right now is the wrong man

Arrest and Trial